Considerable antisemitic material was being spread online via posted conspiracy theories about wealthy Jewish individuals, including billionaire George Soros. In August 2017, the widely publicized Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia featured Nazi symbols, salutes, and the slogan ' Blood and Soil', amid explicit racist and antisemitic rhetoric.

For instance, hundreds of Jewish gravestones were vandalized in Pennsylvania and Missouri, and antisemitic incidents on university campuses doubled in number. In 2017 there was a 57% rise in antisemitic incidents in the United States, in context of rising hate crimes against other groups, including Muslims and African Americans, as reported by the FBI. A similar rise in online attacks had occurred during the 2016 US election, with the midterms being a 'rallying point' for far-right extremists to organize efforts to spread antisemitism online among the populace. The immediate rise in the months of August to October 2018 was attributed to rising tensions associated with advertising for the 2018 US midterm elections. In addition, other anti-semitic acts had been committed elsewhere. This 2018 mass shooting took place soon after Columbia University and the Anti-Defamation League independently reported a spike in anti-Semitic activity online, especially on the popular social networking platforms Instagram and Twitter. However, local rabbinic student Neal Rosenblum was murdered in the neighborhood in 1986 in an antisemitic hate crime. Squirrel Hill has a low crime rate and is not generally regarded as racially tense. The synagogue's main sanctuary has a capacity of 1,250 people.

The congregation also rents space to Dor Hadash, a Reconstructionist congregation and New Light, another Conservative congregation. The modern synagogue building, located at the intersection of Wilkins and Shady avenues in Squirrel Hill, was built in 1953. Originally founded as an Orthodox Jewish congregation in 1864 in downtown Pittsburgh, by an early group of Jewish immigrants, Tree of Life merged in 2010 with the recently founded Congregation Or L'Simcha. About 26 percent of the city's Jewish population live in the area. The Squirrel Hill neighborhood is one of the largest predominantly Jewish neighborhoods in the United States and has historically been the center of Pittsburgh's Jewish community. It is located in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1 mile (1.6В km) east of Carnegie Mellon University and about 5 miles (8.0В km) east of downtown Pittsburgh. The synagogue describes itself as a 'traditional, progressive, and egalitarian congregation'. Tree of Life вЂ“ Or L'Simcha Congregation is a Conservative Jewish synagogue.

6.9 Fundraising to aid the synagogue and the survivors.

He separately faces 36 charges in Pennsylvania state court. Screw your optics, I'm going in.' He has been charged with 63 federal crimes, some of which are capital crimes. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Referring to Central American migrant caravans and immigrants, Bowers posted on Gab that 'HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. Dor Hadash had participated in HIAS's National Refugee Shabbat the previous week. Bowers had earlier posted anti-Semitic comments against HIAS (formerly, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) on the online alt-tech social network Gab. ДЄ lone suspect, identified as 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers, was shot multiple times by police and arrested at the scene. It was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States. The suspect killed eleven people and wounded six, including several Holocaust survivors. The congregation, along with New Light Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash, which also worshipped in the building, was attacked during Shabbat morning services. The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was a white supremacist terrorist mass shooting that took place on October 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life вЂ“ Or L'Simcha Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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